


After the Fray

by Eratoschild



Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Carbuncle as psychopomp, Death, Grieving, Kingsglaive: Final Fantasy XV (2016), Kingsglaive: Final Fantasy XV Spoilers, M/M, hurt without comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-27
Updated: 2018-09-27
Packaged: 2019-07-18 04:49:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,153
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16111148
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Eratoschild/pseuds/Eratoschild
Summary: "Then let us once more into the fray, old friend," had Regis said to Clarus, knowing they would never see another dawn, knowing what lies ahead of their sons.





	After the Fray

**Author's Note:**

> I watched Kingsglaive and I just couldn’t shake myself of this idea of Regis struggling back to Clarus to die next to his Shield, and the two of them seeing their sons before they faded into the afterlife, knowing that there would be no better future for them.

"Then let us once more into the fray, old friend," had Regis said to Clarus, knowing they would never see another dawn, knowing what lies ahead of their sons.  
  
When eery silence falls in the room and Regis is certain he’s left for dead, he finally draws as deep a breath as he’s able and opens his eyes. Voices, mourning, buzz in his head, beckoning him to them.  
   
_Not yet, he’s not taken his last breath._  
   
Clarus. He knows it’s too late but he must make it. He silently begs the kings of old, just enough strength to reach his Shield.  
   
Slowly, interminably, he drags himself through unbearable pain, he inches closer to death. A small blessing at least, that Noctis cannot see him. So reduced, so broken, more so then he’d ever known. “My son…” he whispers into the echoing silence. But there is no use in speaking now with only the bodies to hear them.  
   
Finally, he is close, steps away from Clarus, an easy distance even on the worst of days. But now, it might have been an ocean between them.  
   
“I’ll rest for a moment,” he tells himself, vowing to breathe his last in the comfort of his Shield, even if Clarus isn’t able to know.  
   
He opens his eyes, seconds? Minutes? Later, miraculously, he’s at Clarus’s side, hand on his chest, seeking the heart beating that he’ll never feel. He closes his eyes, the tears start to fall, he presses his lips to Clarus’s brow with a sob. It doesn’t matter if anyone hears him now. He can at least –  
   
“Stand up, Regis,” a familiar, grave voice comes from behind him. His mind must be playing tricks as his body finally, fully, fails. But he turns.  
   
Clarus. “I’ll be with you soon.” He tells him.  
   
“No, Regis, please stand. You will see.”  
   
“By the gods I’m not leaving you,” a note of desperation creeps into his failing voice.  
   
Clarus steps to the side. “Then look there,” he says, voice becoming gentle.  
   
Regis looks beyond him. He sees. “I…didn’t make it. You protected me. I couldn’t make it back to you.”  
   
Clarus steps closer now, he feels a hand on his shoulder, more accurately, he senses a presence there, but there is no true feeling.  
   
Finally he stands, turns. They embrace, but one cannot feel the other in his arms, only the action is familiar but there is the knowledge, each aware the other is there.  
   
A soft padding sound appears in the room. Who violates such an intimate moment?  
Regis turns, sees the faint blue-white glowing of a small creature approaching. It bows its head briefly.  
   
“Carbuncle.”  
   
The creature lifts its head. “Majesty, Shield. Shall we be off? You cannot linger here.”  
   
“No,” Regis says firmly.  
   
“You can’t stay, you must take your place–“  
   
“My place with the kings of old will be there til the end of time. They can wait ten minutes.”  
   
“Regis,” Clarus says. “What is in ten minutes?”  
   
“I want to see Noctis,” He looks to Carbuncle, “I know you can take us to where he is.”  
   
Carbuncle interrupts. “I do not think that’s a good idea.”  
   
“Why shouldn’t I see my son?”  
   
“You won’t be able to speak to him, he would not know that you are there.”  
   
“I don’t expect to, I’m certain it’s better that way, but _I_ want to see him one more time, before he learns…” he breaks off in grief.  
   
“It will not be as you are expecting.”  
   
Clarus takes a breath. “Regis, I want to see Gladiolus and Iris one more time but truly, is this wise?”  
   
“Fine. You go on ahead. I will not be dissuaded.” What could the harm be in looking in on his son, who will surely be asleep by now?  
   
“As you wish,” Carbuncle concedes, bowing his head.  
   
Finally, Clarus agrees, with a resigned sigh. “In death as in life, I will go where you will go.”  
   
In a breath, Carbuncle transports them and they’re standing in front of a hotel at Galdin Quay.  
“Are you sure you want to see this?” Carbuncle asks.  
   
“I am,” Regis says, his mind is set.  
   
“Very well. We cannot stay more than a few minutes. They will not know you are here.”  
   
“I understand,” Regis says, quietly.  
   
And they’re transported into one of the rooms.   
   
It’s dark. Two figures lay sleeping in one bed: Ignis, and the Argentum boy, two in the other, but not sleeping. Noctis, curled against Gladiolus. Sobs wrack his body, dwarfed by his Shield’s massive frame. The two are so like Clarus and Regis, once, and so unlike.  
   
“It’s okay, babe. It’s just a nightmare. I’ve got you,” Gladiolus was saying softly, smoothing Noctis’s hair, kissing his forehead. Noctis was mumbling something over and over again.  
   
Someone stirs in the other bed. An incoherent, accented voice speaks, one syllable. “Noct…?”  
   
Ignis.  
   
“Shh,” Gladio replies, trying his best to now soothe a second unresting soul. “Go back to sleep, Iggy, he’s just having a nightmare.”  
   
Ignis disregards the directive and moves to get up.  
   
“Ignis.” Gladio says, “it’s fine, I’ve got this. You need rest. Go back to sleep.”  
   
Before Ignis can respond, Noctis speaks again, this time, Regis can make out what he’s saying.  
“Want to see dad…see he’s okay.”  
   
Regis can’t stop himself, rushes to the bedside and quickly puts his arms around – and right through – Noctis. He turns back to Clarus, and anguished look on his face. Clarus’s eyes are fixed on his own son. When Regis turns, he meets his pained gaze.  
   
He hasn’t seen such a helpless look on Clarus’s face since his wife died. He wonders how much is mirrored in his own.  
   
“I was afraid of something like this,” Carbuncle says quietly.  
   
Regis again tries to put his arms around Noctis, grabbing yet again an armful of air.“Noctis, I’m here!” he says, nearly crying himself now, but it’s useless, Noctis cannot hear or feel him.  
   
He looks up at Clarus, “I was wrong, we shouldn’t have come here. I...cannot comfort my own son after a nightmare, what good has this done?”  
   
“And I no more can advise mine on matters of the Shield,” Clarus says, mournfully. Regis knows he is thinking of times when they were exactly as Noctis and Gladiolus are now. Clarus blinks, his eyes shining but no tear falls. Carbuncle stands nearby, head quietly bowed, then lifting it to look at him. He speaks no words, but Regis can hear them just as clearly.  
   
He looks to Clarus once more, Surely he should apologize but he cannot bring himself to admit again that he was wrong. The matter lies unspoken between them: Both are well aware that they are leaving this life without so much as the comfort of the thought that their sons will know a better future than they themselves have known.  
   
“Let us go then.”  
   
.

**Author's Note:**

> Sorry, not sorry.


End file.
